Pumpkin Pinot Noir
Description
I really wanted to do a pumpkin wine this season, but pumpkin by itself can be bland. Many winemakers combat this by adding tons of spice; however, an overly-spicy pumpkin brew, whether beer or wine, is one of my pet peeves. I just want a little pumpkin flavor without all the cinnamon.
Solution? In true farmhouse style, take whatever-ya-got-leftover from the season and mix it with pumpkin!
This combination uses some leftover frozen fruits from summer wine batches, as well as a little Pinot Noir concentrate from Alexanders.
Ingredients
2 small pie pumpkins, grated
2 cups frozen peaches and berries, thawed
1 cup Alexander's Pinot Noir Concentrate
2 1⁄2 quarts water
2 cups sugar
3⁄4 teasppon acid blend
1 teaspoon yeast nutrient
1⁄2 teaspoon wine tannin
1⁄3 packet Premiere Rouge Yeast
1 campden tablet, crushed
1⁄2 teaspoon peptic enzyme
Instructions
Chop and grate pumpkins. This is a seriously time-consuming task. It takes forever with a hand grater, but most recipes I've seen recommend it. I'm not gonna lie... I *mostly* grated my pumpkins, and then my arm hurt, and I finished by finely chopping the remainder.
My leftover frozen fruit - peaches and blueberries - came to about 2 cups after thawing. I combined everything in my primary fermenter and added boiled water/sugar mixture. After cooling, I added the campden, peptic enzyme, acid blend, nutrient, and tannin, and let it sit overnight.
SG at 1.080.
The following day, rehydrated and added yeast.
At day 8, SG was .996. Racked, and there was so much sediment, the yield was only a little over half a gallon.
Notes
If reproducing this recipe in the future, I'd start with more liquid and up the sugar content, as well.
End Results
The pumpkin flavor in this wine was very subtle. Similar to other unusual recipes and blends that I've experimented with, this wine was a lot of prep time for a very small amount of finished product.